Autopsy: Confessions of a Medical Examiner (1994 – 2008)

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STORYLINE

Can the dead speak? Yes…but only to those who know how to listen. In this riveting documentary, Dr. Michael Baden, one of the country’s most celebrated forensic pathologists, reveals the stories behind the cases of unnatural or suspicious death that he helped solve. In more than 20,000 autopsies over the past 32 years, Dr. Baden has uncovered the secrets of the dead and brought killers to justice, earning him the nickname, ‘detective of death.’

Episode 2: Voices From the Dead (1995)

The Case of the Unidentified Torso: A dismembered torso is identified through its pelvic bones as the missing Joyce Klindt, who was murdered by her husband, James.

Maggots In Evidence: A bathtub filled with filthy water, a skeleton, and maggots leads examiners to analyze the maggots to determine suicide by barbiturate overdose.

The Good Doctor: The investigation of Dr. John Cavaness, who murdered two of his four sons.

The Jellyfish Case: An unidentified body that washes ashore in a plastic bag is identified as murder victim Keeran Carter, who was identified through the serial numbers on her breast implants.

The Angel of Death: The exhumation of several bodies convicts “angel of death” serial killer Donald Harvey, a nurse’s aide at Drake Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Ron Settles Case: Ron Settles, a star college football running back, is arrested and declared an apparent suicide by hanging. Dr. Baden proves his death was a result of a police choke hold.

A Mother’s Instinct: The death of 4-year old Dennis Jurgens, whose biological mother, Jerry Sherwood, learns of her son’s death years after she gave him up for adoption. Lois Jurgens was later convicted of the murder of her adopted son.

The Fun House Dummy: A fun house dummy is found to be the mummified corpse of a Wild West outlaw named Elmer McCurdy, who was shot to death in 1911.

Episode 3: Voices From the Grave (1996)

Intro: The need for modern forensic science comes of age with Jack the Ripper, the first modern serial killer.

The Sam Kastanis Case: Pathologists prove that Margaret Kastanis murdered her three children before committing suicide, exonerating her husband, who had been convicted for the slaying of his family.

A Killer’s Signature: The murder of Milagros Satero, whose killer was found through examining the contents of her stomach.

The Cheater: The December 1983 disappearance of singer Walter Scott culminates in a conviction for double homicide when his body is found 4 years later floating in his wife’s lover’s back yard cistern.

The Story of Anna: The signature bite marks left by an abducted 11-year-old girl’s braces on her attacker’s body convicts him of rape and attempted murder.

The Face From The Grave: A “faceprint” of Juana Gillette’s face on the trash bag that suffocated her convicts her husband, Ronald, of her murder.

The Black Widow: The attempted murder of Reverend Dwight Moore by arsenic poisoning leads to the discovery that his second wife, Blanche Taylor Moore, is a serial killer.

The Mystery of Folly Island: Nineteen decapitated skeletons are discovered in an island off Charleston, South Carolina, and found to be Union soldiers, members of Wild’s African Brigade.

The Case of The Masked Man: Paula Sims claims her baby girl was abducted by a masked intruder; her bones, found later in the woods near her home, shed no light on her death. When the Sims’ second daughter is also kidnapped, a forensic examination of the infant’s body convicts Paula for both murders.

Case of The Missing Cowboy: The investigation of an dismembered and morphine-filled torso and head convicts a rancher mother of three in the death of her boyfriend, Casey Elliott.

The Bog People: The peat bogs of Europe yield up perfectly preserved bodies, all violently murdered over 2,000 years ago.

Murder in Paradise: Forensic analysis of a rack of antlers leads to the arrest of a poacher for the slaughter of Charger, a famous elk in Yellowstone National Park.

The Roy Kirk Case: Slumlord Roy Kirk is apprehended for murdering and dismembering his complaining neighbor, Ann Hoover; examination also shows how the handcuffed and shackled Kirk hanged himself in the police van en route to the station.

A Bad Impression: Two prostitute murderers of a pimp are identified by a bite impression left in a wad of chewing gum.

The Videotape Murder: A video of skaters in a park is enhanced to prove that a suspect with missing fingertips did not commit a murder caught on tape.

The Mary Ann Powell Case: Strange scratch patterns in the aluminum seat of his newly purchased boat connects Warren Powell to the murder and disposal of the body of his pregnant young wife.

Episode 6: Secrets of the Dead (1999)

The Case of the Severed Hand: Fingerprinting a waterlogged hand found in the Manatee River leads to a violated corpse and a voodoo practitioner running a funeral parlor.

A Fatal Attraction: Hairs found at the crime scene of Andrew Katrinak’s missing wife and baby convict his ex-girlfriend of their abduction and murder.

The Margo Prade Story: A physician is found shot in her car; the unusual imprint of only half a bite mark convicts her husband, a decorated police captain with an upper plate of false teeth, of her murder.

The Telltale Imprint: An incriminating lipstick print left on the glass door convicts a robber, who held up the bank in drag.

An American Dream: When Jack Reeve’s third wife, a Filipina immigrant, disappears, he reveals his second wife, a Korean immigrant, drowned at Lake Whitney and his first wife, Sharon, committed suicide by pulling a shotgun trigger with her big toe. An exhumation of Sharon’s body proves her death was a homicide. Reeves was convicted of the murders of his first and third wife, whose remains were found in a shallow grave at Lake Whitney.

The Strange Obsession of Dr. Carl von Cosel: An elderly physician’s fixation on preserving the corpse of his lovely young tuberculosis patient in 1930’s Key West results in grave robbing and necrophilia.

Episode 8: Dead Giveaway (2002)

Pure Evil: Investigation of the remains of their victims leads to the apprehension of Canadian serial rapists and murderers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka.

The Lady Vanishes: DNA on the envelope of a suicide note proves that a “missing” wife was being impersonated by her murderous husband.

Mail Rape: A serial rapist attempts to throw doubt on his case by mailing a DNA sample to an accomplice.

Blood Hound of Detroit: A blood scenting dog ties up a case that begins with body parts found in a dumpster.

The Medicine Man: Chief Medical Examiner William Cybers wrongly assumes that embalming will hide all the evidence that he murdered his wife.

Belle of Them All: The 1931 capture of an elderly woman for poisoning her boyfriend reveals her to be notorious Norwegian-American serial killer Belle Gunness, who murdered her children and prospective husbands decades ago, burying their bodies on her pig farm before faking her own death.

Featured Documentary

On February 7, 2010 Col. Russell Williams was asked to come to an interview at the Ottawa police station. Williams and his wife owned a house in Ottawa and although he was the commanding officer of Canada’s largest air force base, Canadian Forces Base Trenton, he frequently spent weekends with his wife in the Nation’s Capital.